1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an extract of Angelica acutiloba Kitagawa for treating fatty liver and, more particularly, to an extract of Angelica acutiloba Kitagawa for treating fatty liver disease and a medication comprising the said extract of Angelica acutiloba Kitagawa for treating fatty liver.
2. Description of the Related Art
Fatty liver, also known as fatty liver disease (FLD), is characterized by large vacuoles of lipid, such as triglyceride, accumulating in liver cells, or steatosis (also called fatty degeneration) within liver cell.
It is reported that, 25% to 36% of adults in Taiwan suffer from fatty liver disease. However, due to the non-obviousness of fatty liver disease in clinical symptoms, for example non-specific gastrointestinal disorders including upper abdomen pain, loss of anoresia, flatulence, burnout, or liver pain and, thus that people usually aware of their pathogenesis only when acute hepatomegaly and fulminant hepatitis occur or in an abdominal ultrasound diagnosis.
Fatty liver disease is mainly occurred in person who has excessive drinking, obesity, malnutrition, diabetes (having high incidence, about 80%, to fatty liver disease) or use steroid for a long time. Generally, conventional treatments of fatty liver disease depends on what is causing it, and basically, treating the underlying cause will reverse the process of steatosis accompanied with healthy diet and moderate exercises so as to relieve the accumulation of triglyceride in liver cells.
However, negative attitudes in conventional treatment of fatty liver disease usually result in disease progression, such as hypercholesterolemia, poor blood circulation, slow bloodstream and increase incidences to cardiovascular diseases and serious complication, such as chronic hepatitis, fulminant hepatitis, cirrhosis or liver cancer, leading to irreversible consequences.
On the other hand, for people who have hypercholesterolemia and fatty liver, conventional hypolipidemic agents only can effectively reduce level of blood fat, but is poor in reducing fat in liver cells. Also, the conventional hypolipidemic agents will increase hepatotocity after long-term of treatment. Besides, for people who only have fatty liver disease, the conventional hypolipidemic agents are useless in treatment. As a result, due to the inconvenience of the conventional treatments, there is no preferable medication for suppressing fatty liver disease till now.